


Being the Operative Word

by TheWormThatTurns



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWormThatTurns/pseuds/TheWormThatTurns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River is alone after Miranda. And then she isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being the Operative Word

* * *

 

She was the last one left, a river in denial. There was an old joke like that once, though she forgot who said it. There wasn't room for laughter, not with the others all dead. And the joke was never funny. But her friends had been — they were so many things, states with words like alive, happy, sad, contradictory, alive, alive — until they went like this:

  
**Book** died under the blue, blue sky.

  
_Wash_ faded like an autumn leaf.

  
**Zoe** took down as many Reavers as she could before the bullets ran dry.

  
_Simon_ was torn apart by the remaining monsters.

  
**Kaylee** didn't stand a chance against Alliance guns, no matter how desperately she tried.

  
_Inara_ caught lead in the lungs.

  
**Mal** showed the truth before he choked on his own blood.

  
And now _**River**_ was here, alone, with too many bodies to bury.

  
They had come so far and it wasn't fair to them, wasn't fair for any of them, to have ended the ways that they did. She considered the gun in her hand for hours (or was it minutes?), unsure of where she had found it. Thoughts not her own flickered through her brainpan. She wasn't alone.

  
The man who finally knew the truth was still alive. Hand on her shoulder. A voice. His. "The Alliance is out there," he said, "and others who must pay for their sins."

  
"Like you?" she said.

  
There was no fear in his dark gaze. "Like me."

  
She rose stiffly from the floor, not looking back to where the captain had fallen and stayed. Not yet. "I won't kill you now."

  
His composure wavered for three seconds exactly. "You must."

  
"When everything is done."

  
The answer seemed to satisfy him. "I have names and no doubt you do too. Where shall we start?"

  
Closing her eyes, she could still see the ones she had lost. Preacher, ferryman, warrior, healer, fixer, lover, protector. "First," she said, "we bury those that fell."

  
He said nothing. His patience flowed off him in waves. This man burned under his sins, the things he had done. No longer was he taking orders from the Alliance. Instead, he wanted to hear a just, righteous order in the one voice that could command him now.

  
Then that very voice that could freeze ice if it wanted said, softly, "Next, the betrayers."

  
The 'yes' rolling from his lips was like hearing amen.

 

* * *

  
\- Fini -


End file.
